V. I. Lenin

Role and Functions of the Trade Unions

Under The New Economic Policy

Decision Of The C.C., R.C.P.(B.), January 12, 1922[1]

Written:December 30, 1921-January 4, 1922First Published:Published inPravdaNo. 12, January 17, 1922; Published according to the newspaper text checked with the manuscriptSource:Lenin’sCollected Works, 2nd English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965,Volume 33, pages 188-196Translated:David Skvirsky and George HannaTranscription\HTML Markup:David Walters&R. CymbalaCopyleft:V. I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of theGNU Free Documentation License

1. The New Economic Policy And The Trade Unions

The New Economic Policy introduces a number of important changes
      in the position of the proletariat and, consequently, in that of
      the trade unions. The great bulk of the means of production in
      industry and the transport system remains in the hands of the
      proletarian state. This, together with the nationalisation of
      the land, shows that the New Economic Policy does not change the
      nature of the workers’ state, although it does
      substantially alter the methods and forms of socialist
      development for it permits of economic rivalry between
      socialism, which is now being built, and capitalism, which is
      trying to revive by supplying the needs of the vast masses of
      the peasantry through the medium of the market.

Changes in the forms of socialist development are necessary
      because the Communist Party and the Soviet government are now
      adopting special methods to implement the general policy of
      transition from capitalism to socialism and in many respects are
      operating differently from the way they operated before: they
      are capturing a number of positions by a "new flanking
      movement", so to speak; they are retreating in order to make
      better preparations for a new offensive against capitalism. In
      particular, a free market and capitalism, both subject to state
      control, are now being permitted and are developing; on the
      other hand, the socialised state enterprises are being put on
      what is called a profit basis, i. e., they are being reorganised
      on commercial lines, which, in view of the general cultural
      backwardness and exhaustion of the country, will, to a greater
      or lesser degree, inevitably give rise to the impression among
      the masses that there is an antagonism of interest between the
      management of the different enterprises and the workers employed
      in them.

2. State Capitalism In The Proletarian State 
  And The Trade Unions

The proletarian state may, without changing its own nature,
      permit freedom to trade and the development of capitalism only
      within certain bounds, and only on the condition that the state
      regulates (supervises, controls, determines the forms and
      methods of, etc.) private trade and private capitalism. The
      success of such regulation will depend not only on the state
      authorities but also, and to a larger extent, on the degree of
      maturity of the proletariat and of the masses of the working
      people generally, on their cultural level, etc. But even if this
      regulation is completely successful, the antagonism of class
      interests between labour and capital will certainly
      remain. Consequently, one of the main tasks that will henceforth
      confront the trade unions is to protect in every way the class
      interests of the proletariat in its struggle against
      capital. This task should be openly put in the forefront, and
      the machinery of the trade unions must be reorganised, changed
      or supplemented accordingly (conflict commissions, strike funds,
      mutual aid funds, etc., should be formed, or rather, built up).

3. The State Enterprises That Are Being Put On A Profit Basis
         And The Trade Unions

The transfer of state enterprises to the so-called profit basis
      is inevitably and inseparably connected with the New Economic
      Policy; in the near future this is bound to become the
      predominant, if not the sole, form of state enterprise. In
      actual fact, this means that with the free market now permitted
      and developing the state enterprises will to a large extent be
      put on a commercial basis. In view of the urgent need to
      increase the productivity of labour and make every state
      enterprise pay its way and show a profit, and in view of the
      inevitable rise of narrow departmental interests and excessive
      departmental zeal, this circumstance is bound; to create a
      certain conflict of interests in matters concerning labour
      conditions between the masses of workers and the directors and
      managers of the state enterprises, or the government departments
      in charge of them. Therefore, as regards the socialised
      enterprises, it is undoubtedly the duty of the trade unions to
      protect the interests of the working people, to facilitate as
      far as possible the improvement of their standard of living, and
      constantly to correct the blunders and excesses of business
      organisations resulting from bureaucratic distortions of the
      state apparatus.

4. The Essential Difference Between The Class Struggle Of The
         Proletariat In A State Which Recognises Private Ownership Of
         The Land, Factories, Etc., And Where Political Power Is In
         The Hands Of The Capitalist Class, And The Economic
         Struggle Of The Proletariat In A State Which Does Not
         Recognise Private Ownership Of The Land And The Majority Of
         The Large Enterprises And Where Political. Power Is In The
         Hands Of The Proletariat

As long as classes exist, the class struggle is inevitable. In
      the period of transition from capitalism to socialism the
      existence of classes is inevitable; and the Programme of the
      Russian Communist Party definitely states that we are taking
      only the first steps in the transition from capitalism to
      socialism. Hence, the Communist Party, the Soviet government and
      the trade unions must frankly admit the existence of an economic
      struggle and its inevitability until the electrification of
      industry and agriculture is completed—at least in the
      main—and until small production and the supremacy of the
      market are thereby cut off at the roots.

On the other hand, it is obvious that under capitalism the
      ultimate object of the strike struggle is to break up the state
      machine and to overthrow the given class state power.

      Under the transitional type of proletarian state such as ours,
      however, the ultimate object of every action taken by the
      working class can only be to fortify the proletarian state and
      the state power of the proletarian class by combating the
      bureaucratic distortions, mistakes and flaws in this state, and
      by curbing the class appetites of the capitalists who try to
      evade its control, etc. Hence, the Communist Party, the Soviet
      government and the trade unions must never forget and must never
      conceal from the workers and the mass of the working people that
      the strike struggle in a state where the proletariat holds
      political power can be explained and justified only by the
      bureaucratic distortions of the proletarian state and by all
      sorts of survivals of the old capitalist system in the
      government offices on the one hand, and by the political
      immaturity and cultural backwardness of the mass of the working
      people on the other.

Hence, when friction and disputes arise between individual
      contingents of the working class and individual departments and
      organs of the workers’ state, the task of the trade unions
      is to facilitate the speediest and smoothest settlement of these
      disputes to the maximum advantage of the groups of workers they
      represent, taking care, however, not to prejudice the interests
      of other groups of workers and the development of the
      workers’ state and its economy as a whole; for only this
      development can lay the foundations for the material and
      cultural welfare of the working class. The only correct, sound
      and expedient method of removing friction and of settling
      disputes between individual contingents of the working class and
      the organs of the workers’ state is for the trade unions
      to act as mediators, and through their competent bodies either
      to enter into negotiations with the competent business
      organisations on the basis of precise demands and proposals
      formulated by both sides, or appeal to higher state bodies.

In cases where wrong actions of business organisations, the
      backwardness of certain sections of workers, the provocations of
      counter-revolutionary elements or, lastly, lack of foresight on
      the part of the trade union organisations themselves lead to
      open disputes in the form of strikes in state enterprises, and
      so forth, the task of the trade unions is to bring-about the
      speediest settlement of a dispute by taking measures in
      conformity with the general nature of trade union activities,
      that is, by taking steps to remove the real injustices and
      irregularities and to satisfy the lawful and practicable demands
      of the masses, by exercising political influence on the masses,
      and so forth.

One of the most important and infallible tests of the
      correctness and success of the activities of the trade unions is
      the degree to which they succeed in averting mass disputes in
      state enterprises by pursuing a far-sighted policy with a view
      to effectively protecting the interests of the masses of the
      workers in all respects and to removing in time all causes of
      dispute.

5. Reversion To Voluntary Trade Union Membership

The formal attitude of the trade unions to the automatic
      enrolment of all wage-workers as union members has introduced a
      certain degree of bureaucratic distortion in the trade unions
      and has caused the latter to lose touch with the broad mass of
      their membership. Hence, it is necessary most resolutely to
      implement voluntary enrolment both of individuals and of groups
      into trade unions. Under no circumstances must trade union
      members be required to subscribe to any specific political
      views; in this respect, as well as in respect of religion, the
      trade unions must be non-partisan. All that must be required of
      trade union members in the proletarian state is that they should
      understand comradely discipline and the necessity of uniting the
      workers’ forces for the purpose of protecting the
      interests of the working people and of assisting the working
      people’s government, i. e., the Soviet government. The
      proletarian state must encourage the workers to organise in
      trade unions both by juridical and material means; but the trade
      unions can have no rights without duties.

6. The Trade Unions And The Management Of Industry

Following its seizure of political power, the principal and
      fundamental interest of the proletariat lies in securing an
      enormous increase in the productive forces of society and in the
      output of manufactured goods. This task, which is clearly
      formulated in the Programme of the Russian Communist Party, is
      particularly urgent in our country today owing to post-war ruin,
      famine and dislocation. Hence, the speediest and most enduring
      success in restoring large-scale industry is a condition without
      which no success can be achieved in the general cause of
      emancipating labour from the yoke of capital and securing the
      victory of socialism. To achieve this success in Russia, in her
      present state, it is absolutely essential that all authority in
      the factories should be concentrated in the hands of the
      management. The factory management, usually built up on the
      principle of one-man responsibility, must have authority
      independently to fix and pay out wages, and also distribute
      rations, working clothes, and all other supplies on the basis
      and within the limits of collective agreements concluded with
      the trade unions; it must enjoy the utmost freedom to manoeuvre,
      exercise strict control of the actual successes achieved in
      increasing production, in making the factory pay its way and in
      increasing profits, and carefully select the most talented and
      capable administrative personnel, etc.

Under these circumstances, all direct interference by the trade
      unions in the management of factories must be regarded as
      positively harmful and impermissible.

It would be absolutely wrong, however, to interpret this
      indisputable axiom to mean that the trade unions must play no
      part in the socialist organisation of industry and in the
      management of state industry. Their participation in this is
      necessary in the following strictly defined forms.

7. The Role And Functions Of The Trade Unions In The Business
         And Administrative Organisations Of The Proletarian State

The proletariat is the class foundation of the state
      accomplishing the transition from capitalism to socialism. In a
      country where the small peasantry is overwhelmingly predominant
      the proletariat can successfully fulfil this function only if it
      very skilfully, cautiously and gradually establishes an alliance
      with the vast majority of the peasantry. The trade unions must
      collaborate closely and constantly with the government, all the
      political and economic activities of which are guided by the
      class-conscious vanguard of the working class—the
      Communist Party. Being a school of communism in general, the
      trade unions must, in particular, be a school for training the
      whole mass of workers, and eventually all working people, in the
      art of managing socialist industry (and gradually also
      agriculture).

Proceeding from these principles, the trade unions’ part
      in the activities of the business and administrative
      organisations of the proletarian state should, in the immediate
      period, take the following main forms:

1. The trade unions should help to staff all the state business
         and administrative bodies connected with economies: nominate
         their candidates for them, stating their length of service,
         experience, and so forth. Right of decision lies solely with
         the business organisations, which also bear full
         responsibility for the activities of the respective
         organisations. The business organisations, however, must give
         careful consideration to the views on all candidates
         expressed by the trade unions concerned.

2. One of the most important functions of the trade unions is to
         promote and train factory managers from among the workers and
         the masses of the working people generally. At the present
         time we have scores of such factory managers who are quite
         satisfactory, and hundreds who are more or less satisfactory,
         but very soon, however, we must have hundreds of the former
         and thousands of the latter. The trade unions must much more
         carefully and regularly than hitherto keep a systematic
         register of all workers and peasants capable of holding posts
         of this kind, and thoroughly, efficiently and from every
         aspect verify the progress they make in learning the art of
         management.

3. The trade unions must take a far greater part in the
         activities of all the planning bodies of the proletarian
         state, in drawing up economic plans and also programmes of
         production and expenditure of stocks of material supplies for
         the workers, in selecting the factories that are to continue
         to receive state supplies, to be leased, or to be given out
         as concessions, etc. The trade unions should undertake no
         direct functions of controlling production in private and
         leased enterprises, but participate in the regulation of
         private capitalist production exclusively by sharing in the
         activities of the competent state bodies. In addition to
         participating in all cultural and educational activities and
         in production propaganda, the trade unions must also, on an
         increasing scale, enlist the working class and the masses of
         the working people generally for all branches of the work of
         building up the state economy; they must make them familiar
         with all aspects of economic life and with all details of
         industrial operations—from the procurement of raw
         materials to the marketing of the product; give them a more
         and more concrete understanding of the single state plan of
         socialist economy and the worker’s and peasant’s
         practical interest in its implementation.

4. The drawing up of scales of wages and supplies, etc., is one
         of the essential functions of the trade unions in the
         building of socialism and in their participation in the
         management of industry. In particular, disciplinary courts
         should steadily improve labour discipline and proper ways of
         promoting it and achieving increased productivity; but they
         must not interfere with the functions of the People’s
         Courts in general or with the functions of factory
         managements.

This list of the major functions of the trade unions in the work
      of building up socialist economy should, of course, be drawn up
      in greater detail by the competent trade union and government
      bodies. Taking into account the experience of the enormous work
      accomplished by the unions in organising the economy and its
      management, and also the mistakes which have caused no little
      harm and which resulted from direct, unqualified, incompetent
      and irresponsible interference in administrative matters, it is
      most important, in order to restore the economy and strengthen
      the Soviet system, deliberately and resolutely to start
      persevering practical activities calculated to extend over a
      long period of years and designed to give the workers and all
      working people generally practical training in the art of
      managing the economy of the whole country.

8. Contact Wlth The Masses—The Fundamental Condition For
         All Trade Union Activity

Contact with the masses, i. e., with the overwhelming majority
      of the workers (and eventually of all the working people), is
      the most important and most fundamental condition for the
      success of all trade union activity. In all the trade union
      organisations and their machinery, from bottom up, there should
      be instituted, and tested in practice over a period of many
      years, a system of responsible comrades—who must not all
      be Communists—who should live right among the workers,
      study their lives in every detail, and be able unerringly, on
      any question, and at any time, to judge the mood, the real
      aspirations, needs and thoughts of the masses. They must be able
      without a shadow of false idealisation to define the degree of
      their class-consciousness and the extent to which they are
      influenced by various prejudices and survivals of the past; and
      they must be able to win the boundless confidence of the masses
      by comradeship and concern for their needs. One of the greatest
      and most serious dangers that confront the numerically small
      Communist Party which, as the vanguard of the working class, is
      guiding a vast country in the process of transition to socialism
      (for the time being without the direct support of the more
      advanced countries), is isolation from the masses, the danger
      that the vanguard may run too far ahead and fail to "straighten
      out the line", fail to maintain firm contact with the whole army
      of labour, i. e., with the overwhelming majority of workers and
      peasants. Just as the very best factory, with the very best
      motors and first-class machines, will be forced to remain idle
      if the transmission belts from the motors to the machines are
      damaged, so our work of socialist construction must meet with
      inevitable disaster if the trade unions—the transmission
      belts from the Communist Party to the masses—are badly
      fitted or function badly. It is not sufficient to explain, to
      reiterate and corroborate this truth; it must be backed up
      organisationally by the whole structure of the trade unions and
      by their everyday activities.

9. The Contradictions In The Status Of The Trade Unions Under
         The Dictatorship Of The Proletariat

From all the foregoing it is evident that there are a number of
      contradictions in the various functions of the trade unions. On
      the one hand, their principal method of operation is that of
      persuasion and education; on the other hand, as participants in
      the exercise of state power they cannot refuse to share in
      coercion. On the one hand, their main function is to protect the
      interests of the masses of the working people in the most direct
      and immediate sense of the term; on the other hand, as
      participants in the exercise of state power and builders of the
      economy as a whole they cannot refuse to resort to pressure. On
      the one hand, they must operate in military fashion, for the
      dictatorship of the proletariat is the fiercest, most dogged and
      most desperate class war; on the other hand, specifically
      military methods of operation are least of all applicable to the
      trade unions. On the one hand, they must be able to adapt
      themselves to the masses, to their level; on the other hand,
      they must never pander to the prejudices and backwardness of the
      masses, but steadily raise them to a higher and higher level,
      etc., etc. These contradictions are no accident, and they will
      persist for several decades; for as long as survivals of
      capitalism and small production remain, contradictions between
      them and the young shoots of socialism are inevitable throughout
      the social system.

Two practical conclusions must be drawn from this. First, for
      the successful conduct of trade union activities it is not
      enough to understand their functions correctly, it is not enough
      to organise them properly. In addition, special tact is
      required, ability to approach the masses in a special way in
      each individual case for the purpose of raising these masses to
      a higher cultural, economic and political stage with the minimum
      of friction.

Second, the afore-mentioned contradictions will inevitably give
      rise to disputes, disagreements, friction, etc. A higher body is
      required with sufficient authority to settle these at once. This
      higher body is the Communist Party and the international
      federation of the Communist Parties of all countries—the
      Communist International.

10. The Trade Unions And The Specialists

The main principles of this question are set forth in the
      Programme of the Russian Communist Party; but these will remain
      paper principles if constant attention is not paid to the facts
      which indicate the degree to which they are put into
      practice. Recent facts of this kind are: first, cases of the
      murder of engineers by workers in socialised mines not only in
      the Urals, but also in the Donets Basin; second the suicide of
      V. V. Oldenborger, Chief Engineer of the Moscow Waterworks,
      because of the intolerable working conditions due to the
      incompetent and impermissible conduct of the members of the
      Communist group, as well as of organs of the Soviet government,
      which prompted the All-Russia Central Executive Committee to
      turn the whole matter over to the judicial authorities.

The Communist Party and the Soviet government as a whole bear a
      far greater share of the blame for cases of this kind than the
      trade unions. But the present issue is not one of establishing
      the degree of political guilt, but of drawing certain political
      conclusions. Unless our leading bodies, i. e., the Communist
      Party, the Soviet government and the trade unions, guard as the
      apple of their eye every specialist who does his work
      conscientiously and knows and loves it—even though the
      ideas of communism are totally alien to him—it will be
      useless to expect any serious progress in socialist
      construction. We may not be able to achieve it soon, but we must
      at all costs achieve a situation in which specialists—as a
      separate social stratum, which will persist until we have
      reached the highest stage of development of communist
      society—can enjoy better conditions of life under
      socialism than they enjoyed under capitalism insofar as concerns
      their material and legal status, comradely collaboration with
      the workers and peasants, and in the mental plane, i. e.,
      finding satisfaction in their work, realising that it is
      socially useful and independent of the sordid interests of the
      capitalist class. Nobody will regard a government department as
      being tolerably well organised if it does not take systematic
      measures to provide for all the needs of the specialists, to
      reward the best of them, to safeguard and protect their
      interests, etc., and does not secure practical results in
      this.

The trade unions must conduct all the activities of the type
      indicated (or systematically collaborate in the activities of
      all the government departments concerned) not from the point of
      view of the interests of the given department, but from the
      point of view of the interests of labour and of the economy as a
      whole. With regard to the specialists, on the trade unions
      devolves the very arduous duty of daily exercising influence on
      the broad masses of the working people in order to create proper
      relations between them and the specialists. Only such activities
      can produce really important practical results.

11. The Trade Unions And Petty-Bourgeois Influence On The
          Working Class

Trade unions are really effective only when they unite very
      broad strata of the non-Party workers. This must give
      rise—particularly in a country in which the peasantry
      greatly predominates—to relative stability, specifically
      among the trade unions, of those political influences that serve
      as the superstructure over the remnants of capitalism and over
      small production. These influences are petty-bourgeois, i. e.,
      Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik (the Russian variety of
      the parties of the Second and Two-and-a-Half Internationals) on
      the one hand, and anarchist on the other. Only among these
      trends has any considerable number of people remained who defend
      capitalism ideologically and not from selfish class motives, and
      continue to believe in the non-class nature of the "democracy",
      "equality", and "liberty " in general that they preach.

It is to this socio-economic cause and not to the role of
      individual groups, still less of individual persons, that we
      must attribute the survivals (sometimes even the revival) in our
      country of such petty-bourgeois ideas among the trade
      unions. The Communist Party, the Soviet bodies that conduct
      cultural and educational activities and all Communist members of
      trade unions must therefore devote far more attention to the
      ideological struggle against petty-bourgeois influences, trends
      and deviations among the trade unions, especially because the
      New Economic Policy is bound to lead to a certain strengthening
      of capitalism. It is urgently necessary to counteract this by
      intensifying the struggle against petty-bourgeois influences
      upon the working class.

Central CommitteeRussian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

[1]The role and tasks
      of the trade unions under the conditions created by the New
      Economic Policy were examined at a Plenary Meeting of the C.C.,
      R.C.P.(B.) on December 28, 1921. The draft of the decision on
      the trade unions adopted by the C.C., R.C.P.(B.) was written by
      Lenin.

The theses of January 12, 1922 were examined by the Political
      Bureau of the Central Committee which unanimously approved them
      and submitted them without amendments to the Eleventh Party
      Congress. They were unanimously passed at that Congress (seeKPSS v rezolyutsiakh i resheniyakh syezdov,konferentsi i plenumov Ts.K.[C.P.S.U. in
      Resolutions and Decisions of Congresses,Conferences
      and C.C. Plenary Meetings], Part 1, 1954, pp. 603-12)